Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday March 31, 2010 @11:29PM
from the ancient-picnic-defender dept.

thomst writes "Charles Q. Choi of LiveScience reports that a farmer in southern Henan Province in China has dug up the first known ant-eating dinosaur, a half-meter-long theropod (the dinosaur family to which T. Rex belongs), whose fossilized remains were described as 'fairly intact'. The 83- to 89-million-year-old pygmy dinosaur has been named named Xixianykus zhangi by Xig Xu, De-you Wang, Corwin Sullivan, David Hone, Feng-lu Han, Rong-hao Yan, and Fu-ming Du, whose paper on the critter, A basal parvicursorine (Theropoda: Alvarezsauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of China, was published in the March 29 issue of Zootaxa (the abstract is available in PDF format for free, the full article is paywall-protected.)"

Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday March 31, 2010 @07:26PM
from the none-more-small dept.

arcticstoat writes "One of the barriers to the development of nanoscale electronics has potentially been eliminated, as scientists have discovered the world's smallest superconductor. Made up of four pairs of molecules, and measuring just 0.87nm, the superconductor could potentially be used as a nanoscale interconnect in electronic devices, but without the heat and power dissipation problems associated with standard metal conductors."

An anonymous reader writes: CNN reports that the German government is seeking to ban Scientology, considering it "threatening the peaceful democratic order" of the country and "in conflict with the principles of the nation's constitution" by "limiting or rescinding basic human rights". Is this move a step in the right direction or an infringement upon the freedom of religion?Link to Original Source

xarak writes: The kind of brains who are delocalising your IT job have done another study on a rather more fictional activity.
Neither Reindeers' nor Santas Helpers' work conditions have been taken into account...

Santa Claus should leave the North Pole and relocate to Kyrgyzstan to optimise the delivery of Christmas presents, a Swedish engineering firm says.
The Sweco consulting firm found Kyrgyzstan was the most logical base to avoid time-wasting detours.
It took into account main population centres and the Earth's rotation.
Santa would have 34 microseconds for each chimney stop, and his reindeer would have to travel at nearly 6,000km (3,700 miles) per second.

xarak writes: Lenovo (read IBM) is going the Dell way and offering a Linux desktop alternative. No news on cost or availability, but to the advocate, the fact that this is headlining BBC Tech News should be pretty welcome.Link to Original Source

TheCybernator writes: "Scientists have discovered a new mineral that matches the composition of kryptonite, the mythical rock that could sap Superman's strength in comic books.
The rock — named jadarite — was discovered in a mine in Jadar, Serbia, by the Rio Tinto company and identified by London's Natural History Museum.
Though the white rock didn't resemble anything known to real-life man, it did match the one substance known to destroy Superman's power.
"The new mineral does not contain fluorine and is white rather than green, but in all other respects the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite," said Chris Stanley, the mineralogist who identified the jadarite.
The mineral is sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide, which "probably won't do Superman or us any harm whatsoever," said Mike Rumsey, a mineral curator for the museum."

Operator writes: While Firefox has been in the spotlight for some time now, Thunderbird has yet to enjoy the same wide adoption or glowing praise despite being an excellent email client. It's no surprise that a popular topic has been Firefox's best (and worst) extensions while Thunderbird add-ons have gone largely unnoticed. In celebration of the recent release of Thunderbird 2.0 here are the best extensions for the program along with some honorable mentions.